Ghetto liquidation reenactment criticized

(JTA) — Children will not take part in the reenactment of the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Bedzin, after criticism from Jewish groups.

The reenactment of the August 1943 liquidation by German forces, after which nearly all of Bedzin’s 30,000 inhabitants died in Auschwitz, is reportedly part of a series of cultural events celebrating the town’s Jewish past, the U.K. Telegraph reported, citing event organizer Adam Szydlowski.

In 1941, there was a little-known uprising of the ghetto’s Jews, according to the newspaper. Szydlowski said the reenactment had the support of "Israeli groups," the Telegraph reported. "Re-enacting battles or the march of armies is one thing but it is completely different reenacting mass murder," Jaroslaw Szczepanksi, president of Poland’s B’nai B’rith, told the newspaper.